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Soho did not always flaunt million dollar lofts, designer labels, and miniature dogs. Rather, on this land that now holds Prada, five star restaurants, and the Trump Luxury Hotel used to lay farmland, industrial factories, and New York‟s first red light district. Throughout the years, Soho has faced several threats to its current existence and has been defined by several distinct characters and lifestyles. From the Caste Iron District to Hells Hundred Acres to present-day Soho, this historical area on the island of Manhattan has evolved through several incarcerations into the empire that it is today.

Before the Dutch even arrived in the New York, the area of Soho where real estate competition has driven

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prices of one-room apartments up to one million dollars was not even inhabited by the Lenape Indians. Rather, the closest encampment was about 950 meters away. The land, however, was used for its resources. The Lenape benefited from this hilly terrain that produced fresh-water springs and a great variety of animal species and plants to hunt and gather. It would take almost over a century for the area of Soho to evolve into a permanent civilization.

By the 1700s, once the Dutch inhabited Niew Amsterdam, just south of present day Soho, the area became subdivided into farmland. During this time period, present day Broome Street was covered in trees and Beekman‟s Swamp engulfed Spring,

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Broome, and Grand Streets. A drawing by Anderson in 1785 illustrates Soho as a vast grassland, with small farm houses, chimneys, and livestock peaking out from the trees.

Soho did not have its first glimpse at riches until after 1775, when Broadway was extend North of Canal street by the Dutch and the area became a wealthy retreat for Dutch settlers. At this time the wealthy and powerful Bayard family estate stretched across lower Manhattan and present-day Soho. Bayard Mount, located at the highest vantage point in Manhattan, became fortifications for George Washington‟s army during the Revolutionary War by 1776 and was used as a training ground for spy Nathan Hale. Already being utilized by

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several for its location and resources, Soho soon began to amass its first enduring civilization and lifestyle.

In the early 1800s wooden pipes were webbed underground past Richmond Hill, Aaron Burr‟s mansion, to connect the population of New York with the water supply that ran through Brannon Street. The neighborhood soon experienced its first name change, however, when a drastic incident caused Brannon to become permanently known as Spring Street. At New Years, 1800, a young girl named Juliana Elmore Sands was found dead in the Spring Street well. Her lover, Levi Weeks, was charged with her murder but soon won his acquittal by his defense council, made up of both Alexander Hamilton and

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Aaron Burr. Stories say that the ghost of Juliana still haunts residents on Spring Street, with rumors that she emerged from a man‟s waterbed in 1974 covered in long grey hair and seaweed. Spring Street was soon closed and covered after the incident as it was found to be an insufficient water source for the growing population in New York.

Despite this disaster, Soho continued to grow into a charming neighborhood. Dutch and English residents began to inhabit the area, turning farms into plantation-style homes. A picture drawn in 1826 shows a tea store once located on Spring Street. In the illustration one can see several women in hoop skirts and bonnets, collecting on the cobble stone

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streets underneath fruit stands and outside of their homes. The area soon was built up around the wealthiest man in the country, John Astor, who resided on 585 Broadway. During this time period an upsurge in activity brought diversity to the area, generated by historic buildings which include: The Olympic Theatre (1837), Singer Sewing Machines (1850), The Metropolitan Hotel (1852), Chinese Hall (1856), and the first Brooks Brothers Tailors (1858).

Late in the 1800s Soho became known for the frequent fires that threatened the area. In response, from the 1840s until the 1880s, the development of caste iron, with its fire-

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resistance and strength, soon adorned several buildings that still illustrate Soho today. Iron was cheap, quick and easy to build, and could even be painted to look like stone. The material could be molded easily into ornate shapes and decorative elements. With caste iron it was possible to install large windows into factory buildings and create vault ceilings higher than earlier possible.

The construction of the E.V. Haughwout building at Broadway and Broome marked the height of this architectural renaissance. The New York Times soon labeled this ornate building “the greatest china and porcelain house in the city.” Furthermore, this building was home to the first passenger safe elevator,

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created by the founder of Otis Elevators. By the 1870s Soho was dubbed both The Caste Iron District and the French Quarter for this great architectural innovation that lends to Soho‟s character, embellishing 250 buildings that still stand in Soho today. During this same time period, however, Soho inherited its next personality that tarnished the wealth and influence the area had begun to parade.

Along with this great development in Soho brought the commercial enterprise of bordellos, or rather, the first postcolonial red light district. By 1860 Houston Street was nicknamed Murders Row, causing the street to lose a fourth of its earlier inhabitants. The growth of brothels throughout the

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area came complete with guidebooks, informing readers on the architecture and ladies‟ “services” within. The Directory of the Seraglios in New York, published in 1859, contained a listing for one “lady of the night,” Miss Clara Gordon, who ran her house on present-day Mercer Street. Her review read: “We cannot too highly recommend this house, the lady herself is a perfect Venus: beautiful, entertaining, and supremely seductive. Miss G. is a great belle… She is highly accomplished, skillful, and prudent, and sees her visitors are well entertained. Good wines of the most elaborate brands [are] constantly on hand, and in all, a finer resort cannot be found in the City (Fons, Soho Style).” The former house of ill repute

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on Mercer Street is now the location of a high-end day spa while a brothel on Greene Street is the home of a Starbucks coffee house.

A wave of immigration and industrialization in the early 1900s soon spawned Soho‟s next incarceration. The Caste Iron District soon became a great manufacturing and commercial zone. Retail stores moved uptown and the light and manufacturing industries transformed the present-day lofts into factories where textiles, fashion accessories, and cheap household necessities were produced. This multi-million dollar industry, upheld by cheap immigrant labor, replaced the once gracious homes with sweatshops, trucking

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companies, and wholesale textile houses.

As industrialization took over this once prominent neighborhood, The Caste Iron District became known as “Hell‟s Hundred Acres” and “The Industrial Wasteland.” The area would be busy with sweatshops and factories in the daytime but empty and dead at night. Houston Street quickly deteriorated into a large-scale commercial slum, earning this very negative reputation due to crime and arson that devastated the street after World War II.

During this darker time in Soho‟s history artists and performers began moving into the area‟s old industrial buildings. The lofts offered large

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space, tall ceilings, and lots of light for studio venues and performances. One earlier resident wrote: “Loft living back then meant a raw space made habitable by any means necessary. The downsides included living with your own plumbing, iffy heat, funky freight elevators or heroic climbs, industrial neighbors and industrial-strength rodents, and spooky streets late at night. The upside: Lofts were big enough to produce museum-size paintings in natural light and to accommodate artists‟ penchant for wild dance parties and Ping-Pong (Fons, Soho Style).” As Soho transformed into an industrial enterprise, the land became a wasteland seen as dangerous and barbarous, resented by several residing uptown in New York.

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The historic caste iron architecture which allures many to Soho would not be standing today without the protests of many artists and inhabitants of the Caste Iron District during the 1960s. Under Mayor Robert Wagner the city planned to carry out a decades-old plan to construct the “Lower Manhattan Expressway (LoMex)” as a thoroughfare for Holland Tunnel traffic on the land where the neighborhood stands today. The neighborhood fought back, however, and The Caste Iron District became Soho (South of Houston), the first acronym used for a residential area in the United States, to attract more residence. Pressed, the city soon folded its plans and the

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Landmarks Preservation Commission declared the area a historic district.

Newly named Soho, the neighborhood began the next stage of its long and eventful existence. Factories and lofts once used to store cargo and textiles were converted into high-end lofts as many high-end retailers were attracted back to the area. The vast loft spaces, with tall windows, caste iron accents, and exposed brick became an alternative to uptown living for many on the island of Manhattan. According to O‟Brien, “This transformation seemed to have occurred literally overnight. The galleries brought the rich, and the rich brought the stores, from Agnès B. to J.Crew. Soon this neighborhood would be too expensive even for the galleries

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(Fons, Soho Style).” Just between 1999 and 2001 property values increased from 50 to 65 percent, where today apartments rent for thousands and sell for millions. Surrounded by chic boutiques, beautiful architecture, and cobble stone streets, Soho is one of the most attractive neighborhoods today for those enjoying a high-class lifestyle.

Despite the glamour that defines Soho today, events show nostalgia and dedication to the area‟s past. In 2006, the public stopped construction of Trump‟s Luxury Hotel on Spring Street when a graveyard dating back to an 1800 Presbyterian Church was uncovered in the construction site. When construction resumed, many complained that the 45-story glass

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building would “take away from the neighborhood‟s character.” Today this graveyard lies beneath the public landscaped plaza out front of the hotel.

That same year, a street-art shrine on 11 Spring Street was converted into a three-day museum before being washed clean to make room for new condominiums. The building was once used to house carriages and horses in the 1800s before it was abandoned. Later owned by an eccentric inventor, John Simpson, by the late 1900s the owner had pocked five million and disappeared. The walls of the building soon became a “who‟s who” of street art notoriety, enveloped with figures, faces, letters, cartoons, stickers, wheat-pasted posters, and sculptures by various artists, becoming known as

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The Candle Building. Artists and several earlier residence of the area traveled to The Candle Building from all over the world to visit the three-day exhibit before this great canvas became another addition to Soho real estate.

In an article written in 2008 by the Downtown Express, Richie Gamba, known as the mayor of Spring Street, expresses his longing to return to earlier times living in the neighborhood. Born and raised on Spring Street, Gamba talks about how the area now known as a mecca for designer stores was once the home of several Italians living in rent controlled apartments who would play stick ball, dance, and have barbeques in the streets. He goes on to describe this

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now fast-paced and fashionable metropolis as once “peaceful, simple, and working class (Lucas).” For his charisma and old Italian style, Gamba has been picked up by the Screen Actors Guild and can be seen in several films that take place in the city.

Throughout the past 400 years, Soho has served as a hunting ground for Indians, the site of several esteemed Dutch estates, farmland, the largest collection of caste iron architecture, industrial and artistic revolutions, and one of the most prominent, luxury neighborhoods in the United States. Soho has a unique character from any other neighborhood, town, or city in the world today, evolving to support several distinct lifestyles and

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revolutions. Much like the stereotypes that still define the Soho area, I expected to see rows of shiny, foreign designer stores, up-scale restaurants, and streets unique in architecture and culture compared to many of the modernized areas in New York City. Looking past the designer sunglasses, million dollar lofts, and shiny black cars, each street and plot of land in Soho has a deep history behind it full of stories, from the time the Indians roamed the same land in search of deer till when the local Vesuvio‟s bakery began to turn out hundreds of cookies each day. Each personality that Soho has employed over the past hundreds of years makes up the neighborhood‟s rare charm and character, as a hundred acres that

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over time binded forever-together several walks of life.

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Sources

1. “11 Spring Street.” Flickr. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

2. Anderson, A. Lispenard’s Meadows. 1860. New York Public Library. New York, New York. (New York Public Library)

3. Barr, Allistair. “Soho, New York.” Barrgazetas. N.p., 2009. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

4. Fons, Mary. “A Look at Life South of Houston.” Soho Style. The Cooperator, n.d. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

5. “History.” Soho Grand Hotel. Soho Grand Hotel, 2010. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

6. “History of Soho- New York, NY.” Soho Lofts: New York City, NY. Soho Lofts, 2010. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

7. Mann, Lucas. “Before „Soho‟ Spring Street had Stickball and Horses.” Downtown Express Print. (New York Public Library)

8. “Performance Art in Soho.” Levine Roberts. Web. 20 Jun 2010.

9. Sheftell, Jason. “The Changing Face of Soho.” NYDailyNews.com. New York Daily News, 23 Jan 2009. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

10. Shuster, Robert. “Rites of Spring Street.” Village Voice 27 Dec 2006, Print. (New York Public Library)

11. “Soho Architecture: The Caste Iron District.” Caste Iron on Soho Lofts. 2010, Soho Lofts. Web. 17 Jun 2010.

12. Tea Store Spring and Crosby. 1826. New York Public Library. New York, New York. (New York Public Library)

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13. Weiss, Murray, Jamie Schram, and Dan Kadison. “Skeleton Crew.” New York Post 13 Dec 2006, Print. (New York Public Library)